Amaya looks to be changing its marketing strategy for PokerStars. The company is either giving up, or placing less emphasis on the sports stars it has appointed as brand ambassadors.

An email to affiliates states:

“Starting April 1st 2017 we will be focusing on our ongoing Free Welcome Bonus Offer. In addition, our branding team has designed some wonderful creative and banners to help support your acquisition efforts and drive in some big numbers!

Therefore, as of midnight March 31st 2017, all Cristiano Ronaldo & Neymar Jr promotions materials (ie. banners, images, etc) will have to be replaced as the Cristiano Ronaldo & Neymar Jr banner creative will no longer be valid for you to use from that date.”

Sports stars have been a staple of PokerStars marketing since 2007

At the most basic level, a global internet gaming company consists of a very expensive technology platform and a huge marketing budget.

At the time, Becker was theonly non-poker celebrity in a team consisting mainly of poker players such as Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, and Joe Hachem.

Contemporary gossip held that one of the realreasons for appointing Becker was that PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg was an avid fan.

Regardless of the truth behind that rumor, the role of celebrity sports stars has onlyincreased since then.

Amaya took the strategy to even higher levels

After Amaya bought PokerStars from the Scheinbergs and their minority partners, it has continued to use sports stars to help it reach out to market segments that other marketing channels find difficult to address.

Shortly afterwards, in August 2015, PokerStars launched its largest-ever marketing campaign with Facebook videos featuring the two players.

Interim CEO Michael Hazel commented:

“This is the biggest PokerStars marketing campaign in history and we are excited to launch with exclusive distribution on Facebook. Both videos show how each of the stars love the game of poker in their own unique way. The vast numbers of fans who engage with both stars make Facebook a great platform to reach a big audience.

To put this into context the combined fan base for both superstars is a huge 157 million; the estimated global TV audience for the recent Champions League final was 180 million.”

Sports stars have a global marketing reach

A glance at Christian Ronaldo’s marketing influence suggests that any decision to drop him will be made at the highest level as part of a radicallydifferent marketing strategy.

It would be a major surprise if the two are no longer going to be at the head of PokerStars’ marketing.

That lends credence to the idea that PokerStars may simply be making a change of emphasis, rather than dropping the concept entirely. Either way, the company needs a replacement strategy.

The email to affiliates asks them to use the standard Welcome Bonus offer. But this is unlikely to be sufficient to maintain the volume of new player sign-ups that PokerStars needs to replenish its player pool.

Amaya may be keen to contain costs. Reducing the marketing budget is not the first place an internet gaming company typically chooses to make savings.

At this stage we can conclude that something is up, but can only guess what that might be.

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Joss Wood -
A former editor of Poker Industry Pro, Joss Wood is a graduate in English from the University of Birmingham. Joss also holds a master’s degree in Organisational Development from the University of Manchester. His career path has taken him from the British Army, through business and finance to seven years as a successful professional poker player.